When You Wish Upon a Duke

by Isabella Bradford

  Yet still he hesitated, torn and tempted at once. She was like an angel standing before him, offering redemption. His first tastes of her love had been impossibly, unforgettably sweet. Could he truly deserve the joy she promised? Could he ever be worthy of her and this glorious shared future?

  He hesitated, and she saw it, disappointment flickering through her eyes.

  “Love me,” she whispered. “That is all I ask, March. Just—just love me.”

  She rose on the toes of her slippers to kiss him gently, a kiss that was meant to seal that pledge, that promise, and at last it was enough. He pulled her into his arms and kissed her as if all the world depended on it, and for their world, perhaps it did. He bent to slip his arms beneath her knees, and she yelped as he swept her into his arms.

  “Goodness, March,” she said breathlessly. “What is this?”

  “It’s what I should have done in the beginning,” he said, carrying her from the room. He stopped beside the door’s frame and did not look back. He wouldn’t let his father rule him any longer. He knew better than to believe his past would never trouble him again, but he prayed that with Charlotte at his side, he would be able to keep it in its place.

  “Shut the door for me, Charlotte,” he said. “Shut it as hard as you can.”

  She grinned, and with one hand she shoved the door with such force that it slammed behind them, the sound echoing down the hall.

  “There,” she said proudly. “Done.”

  “Entirely,” he said, and for the first time he smiled. “There are no portraits in my bedchamber.”

  “None?” she said, circling her arms around his shoulders. “Then I suppose we must make pictures of our own.”

  He laughed, and she laughed, too, though she clung to him more closely.

  “I vow, March,” she warned, “if you drop me because you were weak from laughing, I shall be hard-pressed ever to forgive you.”

  “I won’t drop you,” he said, carrying her down the long hallway. “I may not ever put you down again.”

  But he did, of course, onto the center of his bed. He left the windows open, with the sun free to stream around them, and the sweet scent of the newly mown field grasses drifted in on the breeze. Before this day, he’d never have taken her to bed in the middle of the afternoon, thoroughly unseemly for a proper married couple. Now he could think of nothing better. This was how he wanted it always to be between them, without any artifice or shadows or haunting ghosts, and as she pulled off her clothes and smiled at him, he knew she’d make it so.

  This time he’d no doubt that they made love. He took care to woo her with a hundred little endearments and as many kisses peppered all over her creamy pale body, and he caressed her in every way he could imagine and a few more besides. When at last she begged him to enter her, he was more than ready, too, feverish with desire and the need to join with her. He’d never felt anything more right than her body beneath his, moving with him in mindless, perfect unison, and together they explored every inch of his oversized featherbed.

  But even they couldn’t make it last forever, and they found their release together, letting their cries sound through the open windows and fade over the fields beyond. Afterward they lay curled together, letting the breezes cool their sweat-sheened bodies. He pulled her closer, relishing how neatly they fit together.

  Gently he swept her damp hair to one side and kissed the nape of her neck. No matter how wrongly his father had treated him, he had arranged the marriage that brought him Charlotte. Strange to think how much love could come from so much hatred, and stranger still to think that for that single, glorious, fortuitous decision, he would forever be in his father’s debt—perhaps even enough, in time, to be able to forgive him.

  “I love you,” he said quietly. “My Charlotte, my wife.”

  She chuckled happily. “I love you, too, March.”

  “As it should be,” he said. “As it should be.”

  She twisted to face him, her soft breasts pressing against him as she braced her arms on his chest. He was surprised to see the uncertainty in her eyes, in how she nibbled on her lower lip.

  “What is it, sweet?” he asked, lightly touching his forefinger to that plump lower lip. “Tell me.”

  She smiled crookedly. “You will not leave, will you? If I fall asleep, you will be here when I wake?”

  “Yes,” he said, his voice reverberating with confidence. “Nothing will make me leave you.”

  Her whole face seemed part of her smile, her happiness so complete that he couldn’t keep from kissing her again, and again after that.

  “Now,” he said. “There’s nothing more to tell me, is there?”

  She frowned as if thinking deep thoughts, then sighed mightily.

  “There is one small adventure that you might wish to know of, Your Grace,” she began. “It involves an open window and a tree.”

  He sighed, too, but with amusement, not concern. “Could it be that you made the acquaintance of that tree, Your Grace?”

  “I fear I did,” she admitted. “It was a tree in Lady Finnister’s garden.”

  He hadn’t expected that. “Lady Finnister’s? Why the devil were you there again?”

  “It’s a long story,” she said quickly. “She lured me by claiming you were there, and because I wanted so badly to see you, I went, and then that odious Lord Andover was there, too, and he would have seduced me if I’d let him. But I didn’t. I climbed from the window instead.”

  “Into the tree?”

  “Into the tree,” she said. “Then I used that lofty bower as a pulpit to denounce the dishonorable behavior of the Marquess of Andover.”

  She was smiling still, but she was also holding her breath, waiting for his reaction. Last week, even this morning, he might have been angry, even furious, but no longer. Now he felt lazy and content and thoroughly entertained to think of Charlotte denouncing Andover from the branches of a tree. If she said he hadn’t seduced her, then he hadn’t. Andover was lucky she hadn’t tried to box his ears in the bargain.

  “You are not angry?” she asked warily. “There were rather a great many people below me, and Lord Andover was monstrously angry. He was inflamed.”

  “I’ll wager he was,” he said, idly twisting one of her curls around his finger. “I wish I’d been there to see it for myself.”

  “You do?” she asked with such charming astonishment that he laughed.

  “I do,” he said, pulling her down to kiss. “Now tell me more, sweet. Tell me everything.”

  It was, decided Charlotte, the most perfect month of her life.

  As much as she’d enjoyed London, she was at heart a country lady, and now at last she’d a country gentleman as her match. It pleased her that March was such a conscientious lord and landowner, and to her delight he welcomed her to join him each morning on whatever his day’s business at Greenwood might be. Because she was so comfortable in the saddle, she kept pace with him with ease, and together they rode the lands and made plans for years to come. Slowly, too, she began to meet Greenwood’s tenants and other workers, and in many instances she found their company a good deal more agreeable than that of the grand folk she’d called upon in London.

  There were, of course, several dutiful calls to make here in Surrey, too, from the flustered wives of country squires nearly overwhelmed by receiving His Grace’s bride to tea to solemn introductions to the mayor and bishop of nearby Guilford. But Charlotte survived even those visits with graceful aplomb; it was easy to be charming when one was happy, and she was so openly happy now that the whole world wished to be happy with her.

  The whole world, and March most of all. She was blissfully, hopelessly, endlessly—she couldn’t invent enough ways to describe it—in love with him, and knowing he felt the same for her only made her joy even more indescribable. In these sunny weeks, he’d become not only her husband but her best friend as well, and whether day or night, they seldom parted, and never wearied of each other’s company.


  Greenwood became their honeymoon and wedding trip, and the servants soon learned to announce themselves loudly, for there was no telling where or when the duke and duchess would next be seized with sudden desire. They made love in the drawing room and the garden, beneath the bright June sun and the night stars, on the roof by moonlight, and in the water of the lake—though the last became more a splashing, laughter-filled experiment due to the chilliness of the water.

  But one morning in July, their blissful summer changed abruptly.

  The first trays for the morning had just been brought up, with March’s coffee and Charlotte’s chocolate, plus sweet buns and bacon. This had become their customary beginning of the day, sustenance enough before a quick ride, followed by a larger breakfast later in the morning. March had already left their bed, while Charlotte remained curled against the pillows. Although she was usually up with the larks, she was having a difficult time mustering herself from bed this morning. She still felt drowsy and tired, and perfectly content to lie here and watch her handsome husband. He was handsome, too, his dark hair falling over his shoulders, his jaw still unshaven, and his silk banyan falling open over his bare chest.

  “You’re looking exceptionally piratical this morning, March,” she said languidly. “I rather like it.”

  He looked over his shoulder at her, his brows raised in surprise. “ ‘Piratical’?” he repeated. “That’s a fine thing to call me. Likening me to the lawless, villainous brigands who plunder the ships and goods of respectable folk. And you know as well as I that Giroux would rather perish than let me go about with a stubbled jaw.”

  “What would Giroux know of rogues and pirates?” She chuckled, bunching a pillow beneath her cheek. At heart he was still so eminently honorable, and that was one of the things she loved about him. “What if I were part of your plunder? Would that make being a pirate more agreeable?”

  “Plunder, you say?” he said. “Perhaps then I could be persuaded.”

  He took up a silver butter knife from the tray and brandished it like a miniature cudgel, attempting to look villainous. He didn’t, not at all, and she laughed again.

  “Do not provoke me, fair maiden,” he warned, pointing the butter knife at her. “Else ye shall be forced to pay the consequences.”

  He lifted the silver cover on the tray and plucked a large piece of bacon from the plate beneath. He bit into the bacon as savagely as he could, clenching it in his teeth.

  The scent of the plate of bacon wafted toward her, greasy, grilled, and heavy. Most mornings Charlotte found it quite delectable. But now, to her surprise, it affected her in the most sudden and horrifying way: her stomach clutched and roiled, and she’d barely time to bolt from the bed to her dressing room before she retched over the chamber pot. When she was done, she sat cross-legged on the floor, feeling clammy and weak and still too unsure of her stomach to return to the bed.

  “My poor girl,” March said, sitting on the nearby bench to commiserate. Gently he reached out to rub her back. “Perhaps that second custard last night was one two many.”

  “Do not mention custard,” she ordered, holding her arms around her stomach. “Ever.”

  “I cannot fathom what else it would be,” he said. “Unless you’ve acquired some sort of general plaguish illness from one of the tenants’ children.”

  “Oh, March,” she said dolefully. She knew the reason, and if she was honest, she’d known it for a while now. “For such a clever gentleman, you can be remarkably thick-witted. We’ve been wed seven weeks now.”

  “Fifty-one days,” he said. “I’ve kept track.”

  As disarming as that was, she refused to be distracted. “Fifty-one days, then. In all those days, I’ve never refused you, have I?”

  Still he shook his head, mystified. Could he truly be so dense about women?

  “March, please,” she said. “Fifty-one days, and I haven’t had my courses. I’m with child. Your child.”

  The mystification turned instantly to amazement. “A child?” he said. “Are you sure?”

  “As sure as I can be,” she said, drawing her knees up and hugging them close. “Considering how often we’ve applied ourselves to the task, I should be more surprised if I weren’t.”

  “A child,” he said, marveling as he stared down at her. “A baby.”

  “This is when you should be rejoicing,” she said. “I’ve done exactly what you required me to do. I’ve proved myself as fertile breeding stock, capable of producing an heir to your dukedom.”

  “Don’t say that, Charlotte.”

  “Why not, when it’s true?” she said, unable to keep back the bitterness. Tears stung her eyes, and she didn’t try to keep them back, either. “Peers need heirs, and dukes need them most of all. You wouldn’t have married me otherwise.”

  “Charlotte, please.” He came to sit on the floor beside her and slipped his arms around her shoulders. “I agree, yes, that’s why we married. I can’t deny it. But since then I’ve come to love you for yourself.”

  She tipped her head back to nestle against his shoulder and sighed. “You won’t love me when I’m huge and fat.”

  “Of course I will love you,” he said gallantly. “I’ll love you more.”

  “I only wish we’d had more time to be us together,” she said forlornly. “I love you so much, March, and a baby will change things.”

  “Our baby,” he said firmly. “Doubtless things will change, Charlotte, but only for the better. You have my word that I’ll make sure of it.”

  He did, too. She’d thought herself pampered as his bride, but that was nothing compared to the attention he lavished on her now. No wish was too small to be obliged, no whim too peculiar. She blossomed, both with love and with the growing child. March insisted on bringing a trio of long-faced physicians from London to pronounce her in perfect health and sagely assure the duke that the child would be the much-desired male.

  “That’s nonsense,” Charlotte said indignantly. “They can’t tell that. No one can. They’re only saying that because they know dukes want sons, and they can double their fees if you’re pleased.”

  “Having neither son nor daughter, I don’t care which comes first,” March said. “A son is more useful to the estate, of course, but I will love a daughter every bit as much.”

  “You’re sure to have one or the other, my love,” Charlotte said philosophically. “Those are the only choices, you know.”

  But the doctors also advised that they remain at Greenwood, where the country air was more felicitous, which pleased Charlotte, even if they then forbade riding, which displeased her very much. March offered a pretty compromise in the form of a smart two-wheeled cart that Charlotte could drive herself, so long as she promised not to race. Reluctantly she agreed, and he had their arms painted on the door and the spokes of the wheels picked out in gold.

  And so, for Charlotte, the happiest month of her life stretched into the happiest summer. But happiness is a fragile thing, and just as a butterfly had destroyed her family’s happiness when she’d been a child, it now took only a single sheet of paper to bring havoc to the joy she shared with March.

  The letters from London were always presented to March in the same fashion at Greenwood: in his study after dinner, on the same square silver tray engraved with twin dolphins that he remembered from boyhood. There were seldom any surprises resting on those two dolphins: letters from friends and acquaintances, bills from tradespeople, and appeals from politicians and charities were the usual fare.

  One oversized letter stuck out from the others. The address had been printed in purposely clumsy letters rather than written in a decent hand, as if the writer wished to keep his regular penmanship secret. There were no clues with the closure, either, the page having been sealed with a blot of common candle wax. Curious, he cracked it open with his thumb and opened the sheet.

  It wasn’t a letter or a tradesman’s bill, but a print, the kind common in shops and pinned to the walls of taverns and public hou
ses, an engraving made after a famous portrait by a better artist. This one was a crude pastiche, two paintings of varying styles combined into one awkward picture.

  To his shock, he recognized them both. The lower half was the portrait of his great-grandmother Nan Lilly, her breast provocatively bared as it had been for the last century. But in place of her face was another, a face that was even more familiar: Charlotte’s face as drawn by Sir Lucas Rowell. The same drawing that even now hung on the wall before him had been clumsily altered to fit atop Nan’s body, the sweetness of her expression at jarring odds with the wanton pose beneath it. Worse still was the doggerel verse engraved beneath it:

  A noble house of bastard blood,

  Tho’ royal at the core,

  Their ladies do what e’er they could,

  To always play the whore.

  There was nothing more written on the print. Whoever had sent it to March had clearly felt the print and verse were message enough. Most likely the sender wasn’t the author, anyway, but some “friend” who wanted to be sure March didn’t miss seeing the print.

  But who would have created such a hateful scrap of slander? Charlotte was too new to society to have enemies or rivals, and as far as he knew, he didn’t have any, either. To be sure, in school he had been taunted by boys from older, more noble families about the source of his own nobility, and he’d bloodied his share of noses over it. Now that he was grown, no one dared say such things to his face, though he knew plenty did behind his back. He was the Duke of Marchbourne, after all, and while he’d Nan’s common blood in his veins, he also had the king’s.

  But for some anonymous coward to attack Charlotte publicly like this infuriated him beyond reason, beyond sense. It wasn’t just a grievous, mocking insult to his wife and duchess, but an act of pure cruelty directed at a lady who would never harm another.

  “What word from town, my love?” Charlotte came through the doorway, a basket full of just-picked flowers from the garden on her arm and his dogs trailing devotedly around her skirts. “Anything of interest?”